VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Is the CHR a Constitutional Commission?

When President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to abolish the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella was quick to dismiss that the president was simply “expressing his frustration.”

A few weeks later, House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez threatened to give the CHR “zero budget.” Senator Risa Hontiveros came to the agency’s defense, saying the move would be unconstitutional.

Abella and Hontiveros both said the CHR is a Constitutional Commission. Were they correct in saying so?

STATEMENT

Pressed for comment on the president’s remark during a July 21 media briefing, Abella said:

“However, [the CHR] is a Constitutional commission and it cannot be abolished by mere legislation. The chairperson and his members however serve at the pleasure of the President.”

Responding to Alvarez’s move to defund the CHR, Hontiveros on Aug. 8 said:

“The plan by some legislators to cut to zero the Commission on Human Rights' 2018 budget is unconstitutional. The CHR, like other constitutional commissions, such as the Office of the Ombudsman, and the judiciary, enjoys fiscal autonomy.”

Article IX of the 1987 Constitution established three independent, fiscally autonomous commissions: the Civil Service Commission (CSC), the Commission on Elections (Comelec), and the Commission on Audit (COA).

The Administrative Code reads: “There shall be in accordance with the Constitution, an Office of the Ombudsman, a Commission on Human Rights, and independent central monetary authority, and a national police commission.”

Its autonomy is limited “in a sense that it is entitled to the automatic and regular release of its approved annual appropriations,” the SC said, citing proceedings of the 1987 Constitutional Commission.

“(T)his court is convinced that the ConCom had intended to grant to the [CHR] the privilege of having its approved annual appropriations automatically and regularly released, but nothing more,” the court decision reads.

(Guided by the code of principles of the International Fact-Checking Network at Poynter, VERA Files tracks the false claims, flip-flops, misleading statements of public officials and figures, and debunks them with factual evidence. Find out more about this initiative.)